Can emerging technologies be ethical?

The last few months have seen the intensification of the debate surrounding technology, ethics and accountability. Though these discussions were once confined to technology experts, philosophers and op-ed writers, the Cambridge Analytica revelations have led to an increasing number of people realising just how relevant this discourse is to every modern consumer.

The apprehensions faced by all of us have been further escalated by all the emerging technologies and trends surrounding us. While innovations like cloning and genetic modification promise to do a lot of good for humanity, their potential misuse is a major cause for concern. To add to this, privacy, data security, artificial intelligence replacing low-skilled workers, and the environmental impact of rising energy consumption are rapidly causing alarm.

At a time like this, most people are reconsidering whether emerging technologies, which don’t have enough laws surrounding them yet, can be ethical. The simple answer is yes, and standardisation might just be our insurance against the future.

The Role of Technological Standards

Technical standards have played an integral role in regulating economic activities and ensuring that best practices are followed across the globe. As technology’s role in our economic development grows larger, standards bodies from various countries and regions have worked closely with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to formulate parameters within which IT products and services should function.

In addition to cyber security, software specifications and environmental impact, standardisation organisations have made a number of provisions to protect customers from being duped, while also ensuring that tech companies can prosper. Consider the humble compact disc (CD), which revolutionised the way we consume media & exchange information. The reason it was able to make such an impact on the technological landscape is because of its uniformity. If each CD had a different diameter, users would be faced with ambiguity regarding what would best suit the player they possessed. This, in turn, would affect disc manufacturers’ bottom lines, and make regulation a nightmare. However, because of the standards that were put in place, both consumers and manufacturers could reap the benefits of the format.

Realising the importance of establishing best practices in emerging technologies, more and more standards bodies are turning their attention towards them. And India’s national standards body, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), is no exception. Having already established technical committees for emerging technologies, BIS works to stay ahead of the curve, and prepare national standards for up-and-coming innovations. These certifications, when associated with a product or service, can help customers make informed decisions, while also establishing a framework for organisations to function within.

As technologies like big data, artificial intelligence and self-driving cars enter the mainstream, it’s more important than ever for businesses to adhere to these standards, and for users to look to them for quality and safety assurance.

Fortunately, these standards are not formulated in a vacuum. BIS works closely with academics, lawmakers, consumers and domain experts from various companies to ensure that the criteria laid down by them is inclusive, feasible, transparent and legal. Irrespective of their size or turnover, organisations can send in their own experts to provide input into the standardisation process, allowing them to ensure that their products and services can keep pace with technological innovations.

And if that wasn’t reason enough, BIS is also India’s official representative at the ISO and IEC, where its national standards and national viewpoint play a key role in determining the future of business and technology around the world. Putting transparency, customer vigilance and adherence to standards at the fore on an organisational, national and global level will mitigate the fears and ethical dilemmas faced by users and ventures in an ever-changing world.